My Garden Tower® 2 Delivery

I am wicked excited! I just received my 50-Plant Composting Garden Tower 2 yesterday! Many of you know I am an avid gardener and I try new things in my garden each growing season. I put in a hugelkultur a few years ago; self-watering 5 gallon buckets last year; many raised beds; tried a stagnant hydroponics system last summer; and I have grown in small pots and sowed directly into the ground. Each system has a great points as well as down sides. The older I get, the more I like the raised bed system. However, this year, I am trying out the Garden Tower® 2 and I am so excited about it. Not only can you grow a lot of food in a small space, vertically, it also has a built-in composting system! That means you can compost your kitchen waste (with or without worms, which I am a huge fan of btw!) AND feed your plants at the same time!
Simply A-mazing!

Links are sponsored affiliate links to the Garden Tower Project website.

Here is a little bit about the team at the Garden Tower® Project and how they got started. This info is taken from their website on the About page. You can go there to read their story, watch some videos and see some pics of their earlier version of this amazing unit. About Garden Tower® Project

The Garden Tower® Project

On April 19, 2012, the first Garden Tower® project launched on Kickstarter. The brainchild of inventor Colin Cudmore, environmental scientist Joel Grant, and health professional Thomas Tlusty, The Garden Tower® Project began as a dream to connect people around the world with sustainable, organic produce.

The original Garden Tower® container gardening system made it possible for home gardeners to create their own compost, practice vermiculture with their own worms, and reap the benefits (literally!) of 50 plants in one barrel-shaped planter. Its built-in water-recycling system created active nutrient transparent to the plants roots much like a hydroponic watering system — boosting plant growth with nutrient-packed recycled water at a fraction of the cost and size of a full-scale garden.

Garden Tower® 2

By the time we started shipping out the first GT2s, we knew we had something special on our hands. With 100% American-made parts (99% made in our home state of Indiana!), the Garden Tower® 2 epitomized the term “home grown.”

Two years later, we were ready for a transformative update. We had already given the original tower its now-familiar terracotta colouring, but we wanted to take it one step further. Just to name a few, the Garden Tower® 2, built off the original design in new and exciting ways:

  • upgraded vermicomposting capabilities
  • 360-degree rotation
  • 100% recyclable, food-contact grade plastic

Our fans were so ready for the new update that our second Kickstarter fully funded in 33 minutes flat!

MY Delivery & Installation

I got the sandstone colored Garden Tower® 2 delivered to me yesterday and I already set it up! It is so easy and you don’t need any tools! However, I only set up the base and a few pieces of the composting inner tube so I can start composting in it right away, throughout the winter. I won’t fill it with soil, add worms or plant it until Spring. My red wrigglers that I use in my vermicomposting bins are hibernating right now, so I will put a good handful of those into the tube when it warms up and they start moving around again.

It will be VERY heavy once it is filled with potting soil and watered, so it is important to place it in the proper spot before that happens, especially since I did not get the caster assembly that you can put underneath it to move it around. I didn’t think I would be moving it after I planted it so, I didn’t think I would need it. I am pretty sure I know where it will live for the growing season, but things have a way of evolving, so I will let you know when it gets closer to planting time where I actually place it in my yard, and if I decide to add on the casters!

My photos above show the Garden Tower® 2 in the box it was shipped in, my layered compost in the tube, and the base only with a few of the composting tubes inserted. Please don’t hesitate to email me any questions you have, or check out the Garden Tower® 2 website! They are also quick to answer any questions as well. And they ship so fast!

Composting Tube

So, just to be clear, this is NOT the way you would normally set up the Garden Tower® 2. You would set it up just prior to planting time, sometime around May in our neck of the woods. I compost in many different ways around here, and I am trying an experiment with the Garden Tower® 2 composting tube over the winter. If you get one, I encourage you to follow their directions and use their videos for set up!!

To start the composting process, I layered some shredded paper on the bottom and then added some kitchen scraps using the lasagne method, alternating between scraps and paper. I didn’t water it because there is enough dew in the air right now to keep it pretty moist. Since our weather has not been too cold, there are gnats and bugs that will come to feast on the material over the winter. Any rain and snow we may get will keep it wet and it will continue to decompose.

It will be ready to add worms once our temps maintain about 50 degrees when I will unearth my existing worm bin and check activity. I will then and add a hulking handful to the composting tube, add more paper, add on the planting trays and fill the tower with soil, water and add my plants! I cannot wait, but will enjoy the composting and setup process in the meantime!

Once it is filled with soil and the worms work their magic throughout the growing season, the composted material and worm castings will add nutrients and aeration to the soil that the plants will use to grow strong. How amazing is that! There will also be compost to harvest throughout the summer, and I will show you pictures of the “black gold” once it gets to that point and I harvest a batch.

If you are enjoying the start of MY Garden Tower® 2 Project so far, stay tuned as there is more to come as the seasons change and progress.

By the time the 2021 growing season is over, the tower should have enough insulation so the worms can hibernate in the tube during the winter after I move it into the garage or barn. As always, I will keep you updated on how that works out, but that is a whole year away!

What to Grow?

The Garden Tower® 2 can hold 50 plants (yes, 50!) and it is said you can grow tomatoes and squash in it! Check their website to see photos from actual gardners and how they’ve used this system.

I plan to grow several lettuce varieties, parsley, cilantro, basil, spinach, kale, nasturtiums and jalapenos in this tower. As we get closer to seed sprouting season, I will post more pics of the final installation and set up, so stay tuned to my blog page for updates. I am practicing patience here, but it isn’t easy! LOL

Please email me if you want any additional info!

Links are sponsored affiliate links to the Garden Tower Project website.